The BHS Collapse Turns Nasty
The top story on the BBC web site today is entitled BHS collapse: Sir Philip Green demands ‘biased’ MP Frank Field resigns.
I don’t think I would get on well with either Sir Philip Green or Frank Field, but as I don’t have to, it’s very much irrelevant.
Reading Green’s Wikipedia entry, says to me that we have too many differences and a friend once had a serious difference of opinion with Field, which makes me feel that I wouldn’t get on with him either.
My personal view on BHS was expressed in How Many Shoppers Will Mourn The Death of BHS?
I think for a start, it has to be asked, how BHS got into the sorry state they were before the collapse!
I shall be taking strong interest in when Green and Field meet next week.
If the meeting ever takes place!
The Anonymous Widower 
Etam and Tammy Girl were part of the same Arcadia group as BHS, owned by Philip Green. They closed the shops and the brands moved into BHS. But in all my local one – including Trafford Centre and Manchester city centre – had a paltry few items. I had previously bought a lot of my clothes from Etam’s larger size range, and both girls had loved Tammy Girl clothes. Some years later, they did the same with Dorothy Perkins, having a specific concession of DP in their larger BHS. But in the concessions the area they gave was small, carried a tiny range, and everything was pushed against everything else, and no dedicated changing rooms. Then they did the same with Evans. By this time I was already buying most of my clothes from Next, having dropped several dress sizes when I started going to the gym. The BHS stores were now cramped, and the clothing on the whole was becoming more and more “mumsy” – I got my late 80 year old mum’s clothes there. I did like their leggings, and I loved their swimsuits, but that is all I ever bought and I ordered those online because the stores didnt have them. The Evans concessions in BHS tended to have rather old fashioned end of Evans range too.
M&S meanwhile have Per Una, which is a more fashionable range aimed at women from perhaps 40 – 60 who wanted to look smart and modern but not too revealing etc. They increased the size range too. Their shoe department had smart, pretty comfortable shoes as well as the more mumsy velcro stuff. They still sell things for older people, or people who have no style 😉 But I can get lovely bright colourful clothes which fit me nicely, for not much more than the stuff at BHS.
So I think there is a lot of mismanagement and poorly thought out decision making happened at BHS. And I will continue to shop in Next, M&S and New Look, who also have a large range of bigger sizes. I occasionally go to an Evans at a shopping mall place in Denton, but less and less really.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | June 12, 2016 |